Joining the City Guard Bureau

This job would determine whether Xilian lived the high life in Her City or ended up on the streets, sleeping beside Bruce under newspapers and cardboard boxes.

Xilian got up early to prepare. He cleaned himself up and stood before the mirror, dressed as though he were headed to a grand ball.

At the City Guard Bureau, Dailin glanced at his watch. "You're earlier than I expected."

"You know how tight money is for me."

Xilian said it without batting an eye, with a touch of defiance.

"Haha."

Dailin burst out laughing.

"Do I need another interview?" Xilian asked. "I'd say that all-night interrogation gave us plenty of time to get to know each other."

Dailin nodded. "I think so too."

Xilian obligingly asked, "Then do you need to test my ability to do the job?"

"No need. We have a three-month probation period," Dailin explained. "If you can't handle the work, you generally won't survive those three months."

"Oh..."

"As you can see, the City Guard Bureau's workload is heavy, and the danger is high. We're short on people, so we'll take anyone who can fill a position."

Dailin emphasized the point again. "They might not live to the end anyway."

Xilian fell silent.

"You still have time to leave. Think it over carefully."

With that, Dailin crossed his legs and waited patiently for Xilian's answer.

Dailin had interviewed plenty of people. Some gave up and left during the agonizing wait before answering. Others joined gladly, only to die for one reason or another during the three-month probation period.

Very few could adapt to the City Guard Bureau's work. Those who did often grew stronger through the ordeal and became the bureau's backbone.

Xilian asked, "Are you this desperate for recruits because the last batch of trainees all died?"

"Yes. They lasted only a month and a half."

"How did they die?"

"All sorts of reasons. You'll encounter them yourself soon enough." Dailin sighed. "That's what it means to dance with death. There's no room for error. You can't put a foot wrong."

Then he added,

"Relax, Xilian. According to the statistics, once you make it through probation and become a full employee, your chances of survival rise dramatically. By then, you'll be a professional who can handle all kinds of emergencies."

When Xilian fell silent again, Dailin asked,

"Are you thinking about how to survive probation?"

"No." Xilian shook his head. "I'm wondering whether you can pay me in advance."

He spoke earnestly.

"I really am short on money."

"..."

Dailin had assumed Xilian's long silence meant he was weighing whether the job was worth risking his life for. In fact, Xilian had only been struggling to find a way to ask for an advance.

Dailin stared at him for a good while. Then he lost his composure and burst out laughing.

"That's it?"

"What else?"

Xilian frowned, unable to see what Dailin found so funny.

"For someone from out of town, living in Her City is really expensive."

After filling out forms for what felt like an eternity, Xilian signed his name in the corner.

Xilian.

Just Xilian.

After handing the forms to Dailin, Xilian asked, "Does this mean I've got the job?"

"Of course." Dailin nodded. "But there are still plenty of procedures to go through. You don't need to start working just yet... You can begin by getting to know the City Guard Bureau."

"Such as?"

Xilian tried to look patient.

Dailin put away the forms and motioned for Xilian to follow. "First, meet your colleagues."

As soon as they left the reception room, Xilian spotted Anya's tall figure. She was leaning against a corner of the corridor, as though she had been waiting for them.

"This is Anya Polk. You've met before," Dailin said. "Like you, she follows the Torchbearing Path. She's a Rank Two Smelter, and her Soul Marrow concentration is only a few tenths of a percent shy of Rank Three. She has tremendous potential for advancement."

Anya said nothing. She only smiled, her gaze full of unspoken meaning.

Xilian gave a slight nod. Something about this woman always made him feel watched, and he couldn't help wanting to keep his distance.

Dailin led Xilian into the office area. "Not everyone at the City Guard Bureau is a Transcendent. Ordinary people handle plenty of the work."

At a workstation piled high with documents, a young man in glasses was bent over his work. Noticing Dailin's arrival, he looked up at the two of them, then lowered his head and resumed working.

"This is Elton Hawk."

At Dailin's introduction, Xilian offered a friendly smile.

"Hello. I'm Xilian."

Elton's response was distinctly cool. Without looking up, he said,

"Hello."

Dailin brushed off the chilly reception with a smile. "Don't take it personally. Elton isn't very good at socializing."

"What's this?"

Xilian had noticed a complicated machine beside Elton's workstation. It had copper knobs and needles, and beneath a narrow glass window were rows of figures he couldn't understand.

Multicolored cables protruded from gaps in the machine. At its core, a sealed Source Crystal gave off a steady, gentle glow.

"Oh, you haven't seen one of these?"

Elton perked up. His earlier coolness vanished as he volunteered, "It's a Swift Swallow Transceiver."

"Mr. Hawk, could you explain it to me?"

Xilian pulled over a chair and sat down beside Elton.

"Of course."

Elton launched into an eager explanation. "It's a communication device. The technology dates back to the Golden Age and was later restored and improved by the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms."

"Normally, its range is quite limited. It only covers Her City and the surrounding area, but that's enough for our work."

As Elton spoke, Dailin cut in.

"Elton is also our communications officer. He sets up communications for us during operations. As for your device, you'll be issued one later."

Elton paid Dailin no attention and continued.

"Nowadays, the Interstice Gray Domain isolates the city-states, making long-distance communication extremely difficult. But the Spirit Artisans of the Court of a Thousand Mechanisms turned its properties to their advantage. Instead of transmitting signals into the physical world, they send them into the Interstice Gray Domain..."

Xilian responded instinctively. "The Interstice Gray Domain... The Spirit Realm inherited some of the Origin Sea's properties. Space behaves chaotically there."

"Exactly!"

Elton's eyes lit up as if he had found a kindred spirit.

"Put crudely, like the Origin Sea, the Spirit Realm has no concept of space. In other words, every signal exchanged within it exists at the same point.

"By transmitting through the Spirit Realm, Swift Swallow Communication Technology can cover vast distances and connect one city-state to another."

Xilian stared at the machine in shock. "With this little thing?"

He stood and examined the Swift Swallow Transceiver closely, running his hands over it from top to bottom.

"Yes. This little thing can connect the city-states."

Elton gently stroked the rough metal surface, gazing at it with the affection he might have shown a lover.

"That's only in theory. In practice, it isn't nearly as miraculous as Elton makes it sound."

Anya spoke with her arms crossed, like a teacher correcting a student.

"In theory?"

Xilian came back to himself.

If Swift Swallow Communication Technology were truly that powerful, the Civilized World would not have fallen into a City-State Era so fractured that each city stood apart. There had to be some fatal flaw limiting its use.

"The Spirit Realm's spatial properties are chaotic. So are its temporal properties."

Elton explained, "A signal sent into the Spirit Realm emerges at a random point in time. In practical terms, that can mean a huge delay. The recipient might get it a second later—or decades later."

Xilian's face fell. "A delay? That's certainly a major limitation."

"Not a delay. A random point in time."

Elton corrected him sharply, his expression utterly serious.

His reaction was so intense that Xilian had no idea what to say. Dailin shook his head helplessly, while Anya snickered nearby.

Elton was clearly passionate about Swift Swallow Communication Technology. For all Dailin's talk about his poor social skills, the subject turned him into a fervent believer.

Elton fixed Xilian with an unwavering stare. "Legend has it that while the Spirit Artisans were refining the technology, they received a signal from the future."

"The Spirit Realm's chaotic space and time could even let a signal reach the future?"

Xilian wondered if he had heard correctly. He had combed through the public library, and only two Giant Gods had powers involving the future.

One was the Giant God Fate Weaver, who wove the world's threads of fate, with countless branching destinies stretching out beneath her loom. The other was the Time Eater, a Giant God who had mysteriously vanished after the Noonday Calamity.

Xilian had never imagined that such mysterious, uncanny power could be harnessed by a little machine like this.

"I know. You must all think I'm crazy, and I can't offer any solid proof... But I think it's the right conclusion. What interferes with the signals is their emergence at random points in time."

Elton's enthusiasm faded, and his gaze returned to the documents he had to process.

He sighed softly. Few people understood him. Most just thought he was an antisocial eccentric.

"I don't think you're crazy."

Xilian studied the Swift Swallow Transceiver even more closely. He even considered stealing it and taking it home for Bruce to dismantle.

"You believe me?"

Elton looked at Xilian in disbelief. He had told many people the same thing, but most had laughed it off. Only a handful had listened seriously, let alone believed him—people like Xilian.

"Of course," Xilian said firmly. "Talking to the future? How cool is that?"

Elton froze.

Xilian's approval had nothing to do with conviction or faith in the technology. It was simply... cool.

Well, that was fine too. At least Xilian hadn't mocked him.

Xilian reluctantly ran his hands over the Swift Swallow Transceiver a few more times before asking, "Are there any other colleagues I should meet?"

"No. That's everyone in our team for now." Dailin spread his hands. "If you're wondering why there are so few of us, all I can say is that the others died. We wouldn't be this short-staffed otherwise."

"Was that supposed to be a dark joke?"

"You can take it that way."

Xilian gained an entirely new appreciation for the demands of working at the City Guard Bureau.

"Oh, there is one more colleague, but she doesn't seem to be here today."

Dailin suddenly remembered someone and looked around, but she was nowhere in sight.

"You don't need to pay her much mind. She got in through connections. She's only at the City Guard Bureau to pad her résumé."

He suddenly lowered his voice. "Her father is a senior figure at the Centipede Trading Company's Her City branch. He's donated generously to the City Guard Bureau, and the City-State Council is happy with the arrangement. It's those of us who actually do the work who suffer."

Anya reached out and patted Dailin's shoulder a few times. When he turned, a girl dressed in red was standing behind him.

Meifuni kicked Dailin hard in the shin.

"I'm not here just to pad my résumé! I do my job properly too!"